A BULGARIAN fraudster stole £10,000 from elderly shoppers during a pickpocketing tour of Britain, including the North-East and North Yorkshire.

County Durham, Northallerton , North Yorkshire, and Middlesbrough were among the places Stancho Georgiev passed through during his trip.

The 33-year-old targeted pensioners because they were more likely to keep their bank card pin number written down, the Old Bailey was told.

A female accomplice stole their purses and handbags as they browsed in shops.

Within minutes, the cards were used by Georgiev to steal as much as possible, using cashpoints and buying laptop computers at Argos branches.

In Northallerton, they stole a purse from the handbag of a 71-year-old woman as she shopped in the High Street.

She said: “I left my husband in a car in Tesco and went to Cancer Research. I took out my purse and purchased items from the store.

“When I walked out, I realised by handbag felt light. I went back to Cancer Research to see if my purse was there, but it wasn’t.”

Although she immediately rang her bank to cancel her cards, the thieves had already used them to withdraw £500 from cashpoints.

Police launched a surveillance operation to catch them, and Georgiev was arrested on February 9, this year.

His accomplice, a 45-yearold woman, has never been traced. A second woman, Maria Slavova, 62, from Lordship Lane, Wood Green, London, went on the run after being granted bail, but was cleared of all charges after a trial in her absence.

Georgiev, of The Avenue, in Tottenham, London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to conceal, disguise, convert or transfer criminal property and was jailed for two-and-ahalf years.

The judge, Sir Geoffrey Nice, told him the evidence revealed a “sustained course of mean conduct”.

He said: “You were targeting vulnerable people, elderly women.

“This conduct was planned and there was no conceivable excuse of any kind. You had come to this country and have earned very little money while you have been here.”

As well as North Yorkshire, victims were targeted in Northern Ireland, Kent, London, Northampton and Portsmouth.

Georgiev’s VW Passat was recorded by number plate recognition cameras across the country and locations visited included Chester, Stokeon- Trent, Birmingham, Newport, Harpenden, Coventry, Banbury, Gillingham, Milton Keynes, Colchester, Lowestoft, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Essex, Derbyshire and Yorkshire.